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Netha Raika emails photos of
himself to the US. The slight twenty five year-old is seeking a match: not for
matrimony – he’s a newlywed and recent father himself – but for a defender for
his people. From his 70-family village near Bilara in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, Netha
sends pictures of the Raika, one of the world’s most treasured camel cultures,
to people across the US. Netha’s photos are a kind of
lifestyle SOS.

The irony of his dilemma is that just as the
Western world is starting to value cultures like the Raika, thanks to emerging
data on the medicinal quality of camel milk, they and other Indian pastoralists
are caught in a legal bind. The Indian camel milk market is estimated at some
Rs. 3024M (around US 45 million), yet India is losing its camels, with only
8,000 pastoralist families now owning the animals.

Classified by the United Nations
among the world’s most important
agricultural heritage
systems, the
Raika have identified with camels since the beginning of their collective
memory. Roving atop camels half the year, they have traditionally made their
living by selling camels and sheep to farmers, sustaining themselves partly
with camel milk. The one-humped dromedaries are cultural cornerstones, sources
of the camel-hair blankets Raika fathers give to daughters as wedding gifts. But
factors such as fewer grazing areas, water diversion to agriculture, and the
replacement of camels with farming technology have made camel livelihoods more
difficult, accelerating the slump in India’s dwindling camel population. With
Raika children now attending school, an opportunity not open to their elders,
Netha says ruefully that the young generation has “no interest in camels and
sheep.” And although many Raika want to halt the demise by formalising camel
milk sales, they are unable to get permits, making their remaining camels near
purposeless.

A Raika man with his camel herd. Photo: Camel Charisma

The
bind
reached Gordian-knot status when camels were deemed “threatened by the
pastoralist community” by the global animal-rights group International
Organization for Animal Protection (OIPA). The activists object to almost all
camel activities, from transporting them without special vehicles, to their
exhibition and use in tourist rides. While the insular Raika were not
specifically targeted, a resulting law has now attempted to discourage camel
sales outside of Rajasthan, a hub of the pastoralist economy. The UN Food and
Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) camel expert, Bernard Faye, refutes claims
that pastoralists are a threat to their camels, but OIPA, supported by a
coalition of people including some strict vegetarian Jains, nonetheless helped
initiate the Rajasthan government’s 2014 designation of camels as state
animals. Officials said that the move
was intended to help check smuggling and migration of the
animals, but things weren’t quite that simple.

Anxious Raika herders and
their European advocates at first hoped that the law would encourage efforts to
sell the precious camel milk, retailing for up to Rs. 3500 (US 52 dollars) per
litre in America. However, the ensuing 2015 Rajasthan Camel Bill has stymied
almost all India’s estimated 400,000 camels, 80 per cent of which are kept in
Rajasthan. The law penalises even the Raika for selling camels for
slaughter (which they avoid doing directly) or out of the state, causing a
dilemma acknowledged worldwide. “The Raika get conflicting messages from the Indian government. They
proclaim camels the state animal but prohibit nomad people to graze in certain
areas,” says camel historian Doug Baum. The FAO has meanwhile noted the
counterproductive potential of the ban, as the alternative grazing land and necessary support structures like
milk sellers’ licenses and insurance have failed to materialise. Likewise, the
effects of the law extend to the Raika among India’s 100,000 sheep herders, as
covering the distance required by sheep grazing is rendered difficult without
camels. As Faye warns, “the
actual law in Rajasthan is protecting camels as animals, but not pastoralists
as economic actors.” Pointing to camel milk opportunities, he notes that decent
pay would make farming feasible. Nonetheless, approval from food and safety
authorities remains elusive and state officials
unresponsive to Raika petitions.

Raika protesting against the ban on taking camels out of Rajasthan. Photo: Camel Charisma

A largely closed society, the
Raika believe their Hindu faith entrusted them as camel caregivers - as Netha
notes, “Camels made our God Shiva and his wife.” Long deemed taboo for most
commercial uses, camels are largely men’s work, although both men and women
live alongside their herds. With a unique memorization of pedigree sheep and camel lineages over eight
generations, the Raika have been deemed guardians of agrobiodiversity by the
FAO. But with local sales down and no milk permits
forthcoming, they are shedding their animals for basic survival income.
Although camel sales outside Rajasthan are now labelled smuggling, many animals
are bought by out-of-state dealers for resale in expanding Muslim meat markets
like Hyderabad and export markets like Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. This is against
Hindu and Raika custom, but Raika sellers see few options - the animals are
fast becoming relics.

Only 20 per cent of the Raika
now keep camels, a drop reflected in the nine camels left in Netha’s village,
where only 4 people under age 30 are sheep herders. Raika youth regard
unproductive camels as burdens rather than cherished family members like their
elders do. If this trend continues, yet another organic and low-pollution
industry may literally turn to dust, driving local communities deeper into
unemployment.

A Raika girl with camel herd. Photo: LPPS

So
why not start selling milk? “The problem is bureaucracy,” says German vet and
camel expert Dr. Ilse Kohler-Rollefson, a long-time advocate of the Raika.
Despite demand for the milk and an existing organized collection system in
Rajasthan’s eastern and southern districts, Kohler-Rollefson explains that the
Rajasthan Dairy Cooperative doesn’t officially accept camel milk, and the Food
Safety and Standard Authority of India has not yet set camel milk standards.
Extreme seasonal heat, slow trains (risking milk spoilage) and lack of
refrigeration compound the difficulties.

Nonetheless, the camel milk
market is having some impact, mostly driven by global concerns about autism and
diabetes. The milk’s use as an autism treatment gained traction in 2012-2013
with publications in prominent autism and medical journals, and American and
Australian camel dairies now cater to the health market. While data is still
scarce, anecdotal reports indicate raw camel milk has the most therapeutic
benefit, so proper testing and processing is needed. One in every 45 US
children is now diagnosed with autism, and parents of the estimated 10 million
autistic Indian children are also seeking it in greater numbers. As the milk is
increasingly being used in other global products like milk powder, allowing
even pasteurized camel milk sales would be a salvation to the Raika. Fathers of
autistic children from as far as Chennai even set up a trial supply chain,
drawing in the Raika. However, they have ultimately had to turn to imported
powdered camel milk due to supply problems –
as one father noted after communicating with an Indian government
minister to get local milk, “our efforts went to bin.”

Ironically, the Raika themselves are testament to the therapeutic benefits of
camel milk, which is thought to lower blood sugar in diabetics, with current
research confirming the legendary absence of diabetes among the tribe. However,
with camel milk disappearing from their diet and evermore modern lifestyles, diabetes recently appeared among the Raika.

Times have indeed changed for
older generations of Raika like Netha’s uncle Tilokram Raika, who has now sold
his camels and contents himself with 80 sheep. Nonetheless Netha, who unlike
most Raika is literate and has a B.A. degree, wants to hold onto a camel herd
he cannot afford. Although the FAO reports that camels are the third
fastest-growing livestock animal and offer food security in arid lands, by sad
contrast, the Indian camel population plummets as financial necessity forces
them to be sold for meat. Still, “We get calls every day from Raika people
asking us to buy their milk,” says Kohler-Rollefson.

There are models for success, including pilot schemes for individual collection
and marketing that have been sponsored by some local NGOs to ship frozen camel
milk to autism and diabetes patients in India, as well as to make cheese.
Paying up to Rs 50 per litre to local Raika herders, such projects have enabled
some Raika families to retain their camels, or even invest in new ones.

Netha is meanwhile making headway by selling
crafted camel decorations and planning a camel-themed retreat to bring American
tourists to his village. But his anguish for his people remains. For him, the problem is also personal as well as
political. Greater visibility for the Raika may boost the education and
marriage prospects of his baby girl – but only if this can be realised
before camels are let go and the irreplaceable knowledge of a desert culture is
lost.

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